RoboBee Clings to the Ceiling With Static Electricity

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This insect-sized flying robot is smaller than a quarter, 12 times lighter than a paperclip, and zips through the air with a pair of flapping wings. That's not even the impressive part. Using a trick of electrostatic energy, the minuscule bot can efficiently cling to the underside of any flat surface, from tree leaves to glass skylights to your plaster ceiling. This electric-powered perching is almost effortless—it takes 1,000 times less energy than is needed to fly.

The insectoid bot is called RoboBee, and was developed by a team of roboticists led by Moritz Graule, a mechanical engineer at MIT. RoboBee's wings beat almost as quickly as a real honeybee, flapping at the lightning pace of up to 120 beats per second. Although the robot's chassis was first unveiled in 2013, Graule's team has only now added this new electrostatic gripping ability. The mechanics of the flying, perching bot are outlined this week in the journal Science.

"Many applications for small drones require them to stay in the air for extended periods," said Graule in a press release accompanying the research paper. But as any quadcopter owner knows, even smaller drones run out of battery life fast. "We want to keep them aloft longer without requiring too much additional energy."

Graule and his colleagues hope that future incarnations of RoboBee could be mounted with tiny cameras and other sensors, "providing a bird's-eye view of a disaster area, detecting hazardous chemical or biological agents" the scientists write... and perhaps, a la James Bond, providing new Orwellian tools for clandestine services.

It takes 1,000 times less energy than is needed to fly

To cling to the underside of any flat surface, including wood, glass, brick, stone, and metal, RoboBee initiates a perching maneuver, swooping up to a stable position right underneath the surface of wherever it's trying to stick. On top of RoboBee is a bulls-eye shaped patch, attached with a polyurethane foam mount. That foam mount assures that lightweight RoboBee doesn't bounce off as it swoops up to make contact with its target.

Next, thin copper electrodes in the bulls-eye patch create a gentle tug of static electricity. RoboBee stays stuck as long as these copper electrodes produce this tiny amount of voltage. When finished perching, RoboBee smoothly detaches by cutting off the voltage, which cleanly eliminates the static cling and allows the bot to resume flight immediately. "One of the biggest advantages of this system is that it doesn't cause destabilizing forces during disengagement, which is crucial for a robot as small and delicate as ours," said Graule.

This perching takes anywhere between 500 and 1,000 times less energy than flying for RoboBee. That's such a low power requirement that it's easy to imagine how, if future versions of RoboBee had deployable solar panels, the robot could even recharge its batteries while taking a break.

Mirko Kovac, an aerial roboticist who penned an accompanied essay alongside the Science article, also foresees a variety of different ways RoboBee's perching maneuver could save it energy. It could use "wind to travel larger distances or, similar to seeds, avoid aerial locomotion capabilities altogether and travel by perching on animals and larger mobile robots at no energetic cost," he writes.

But we're not there just yet. One reason RoboBee weighs only 0.08 grams is that right now it's both powered and controlled remotely. That means it requires tethered flight, a problem that's likely to persist until engineers design batteries light enough for RoboBee to use. That isn't stopping Graule's team—they're currently focusing on ways to figure out how to attach RoboBee to the underside of curved and uneven surfaces.

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